LUSH On Your Grill: Summer Recipe Series

Vegetarians and vegans have reclaimed their rightful place on the grill with all sorts of creative meatless mains to fire up.

Our summer recipes series continues with delicious vegan and vegetarian, easy-to-make condiments you can add to your next grilling party. While none of the recipes actually call for LUSH products, have some fun with us borrowing inspiration from the LUSH Kitchens and applying some of our favorite ingredients to a few tried and true classics for dips and marinades.

For playful flavors at your next potluck, read on, hungry LUSHies:

Strut Your Sauce

Did you know most barbeque and Worchester sauces contain anchovies? The fishy ingredient found in most store-bought recipes can be left out in our vegan home-blend that’s as tasty and easy as cracking open a bottle. We invited shampoo heroine Cynthia Sylvia Stout to the party - well, her ingredients at least, subbing in characteristic ingredients for some dynamic flavors. And it turns out vegan stout makes a beautiful base for barbecue as well as shampoo, adding its characteristic body and color. Adding lemongrass to the sauté mix gives this an unexpected spirit from the start, while the dash of fresh lemon juice added at the end keeps the sauce’s interest level. If you don’t want to use beer, just make up the difference in water.

Step Two: In a smaller bowl, mix water, tomato paste and vinegars, and add in sugar and spices, mixing all together. Combine with ingredients from step one, again mixing all together over heat. Lastly, mix in your beer and lemon juice.

Step Three: Keep it covered, over low heat, stirring occasionally for about 20 minutes. Taste it along the way to see how the flavors develop, adjusting as you go along. It will keep sealed in a mason jar refrigerated for about a week.

Try this with pulled spaghetti squash! Cut a spaghetti squash in half, and set it in a roasting pan with a half-inch of water. After it’s roasted for 30-40 minutes, it should have absorbed the water and becomes easily the most fun you’ll have with a fork, creating strands or “spaghetti” from the squash. Delicious in taste and excellent for mixing with the sauce for a classic barbeque “pulled” sandwich made of vegan, healthy ingredients.

Some Like It Sweet

Honey drizzed over grilled veggies, or slathered over fresh cornbread takes a delicious vegetarian turn for the disco with our recipe inspired by It’s Raining Men shower gel. This dip pairs especially nicely with fire-roasted sweet potatoes or carrots. If a recipe calls for honey, sub in this blend instead.

Infusing honey with rosehips and citrus is way easier than it sounds, and will have the compliments raining down upon you at your next party:

It’s Raining Men Honey Drizzle

• ¼ cup strongly-brewed rosehip tea

• 1 cup raw, organic honey

• 3-4 pieces of orange rind, about a tablespoon

Step One: Using a peeler, gather three or four strips of rind from an orange. (Or, just use fresh discards from your next citrus snack!) The peel is full of orange essence, which will infuse into the honey as the heat coaxes it along and create a beautiful, sunny aroma.

Step Two: In a saucepan simmer honey and tea together over low heat, mixing until combined. Add in the orange rinds and let all simmer for 2-3 minutes, before turning heat off. Cover and let cool. After about 20-30 minutes, remove the orange rinds with a spoon, and pour honey into a bowl for dipping.

Step Three: Seal any leftovers in a Mason jar and use within a week. Don't forget to save some to drizzle over ice cream for dessert!

Some Like It Salty

Give your salt a provincial twist inspired by the most dignified deodorant we know, The Guv’ner. Though we leave the charcoal out, (unless you have a charcoal grill!), this recipe calls for tasty herbs of sage, mint and lavender. Using fresh herbs captures their youthful, summery taste. Make sure your herbs are clean and have been grown for soil suitable for edible plants. Not sure? Get some fresh herbs from the farmer’s market, especially lavender. Dried herbs will work, but fresh is always more fun.

Try sprinkling The Guv’ner’s Seasoning Salt on tofu and veggie kebabs, or over grilled corn on the cob - delicious!

Step One: Place all ingredients together in a small bowl, and sift together, covering herbs with the salt and pepper mix. Lightly crush the herbs and salt together.

Step Two: Put in a Mason jar and seal, or cover bowl with a cloth and rubber band, periodically shaking the mixture every so often.

Step Three: After 12 - 24 hours, remove the leaves and stems of the herbs, and crush the herbs more vigorously into the salt. It should now have gathered up a warm herbal scent, which is best kept sealed in a mason jar and used up within a month, making fresh batches as needed.

A note about Alaea salt: This is Hawaiian sea water that is mixed with mineral-rich red clay which adds a distinct marine flavor to the salt but use it sparingly; a dash goes further than you think. Other salts can be used, but we love how this one pairs with the herbs. It’s like eating in a Hawaiian garden overlooking the sea - heavenly. At LUSH, we use Alaea salt in our GeoPhyzz Bath Bomb for making the water an equally heavenly soak for tired muscles (and feet too). That the salt tastes so nice, and mineral rich at the same time, is an added bonus to the ingredient for at-home kitchens, too.

Our kitchens at home are bubbling with all kinds of secret sauces this summer. We’re spending these longer evenings outdoors eating food infused with flavor, and a little LUSH character too. We’re always hungry for more ideas, and with the kitchens where LUSH products are made so well-stocked with produce, spices, herbs and flowers used in our fresh, handmade ingredients - inspiration is all around us.

Do you have a vegetarian adaptation of a barbecue classic? We’d love to know what else we can add to our menu!